Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Up-swinging

Life is good...life is process...and in spite of everything I'm joyful.  The energy I'm riding on today was generated from breakfast and gallery hopping yesterday with Juanita and Valerie.  After I left them my mind and emotions begin racing around over what I was going to work on when I came home.  This or that, or how about....sooo I had to slow myself down and ease back into my daily life by stopping by the art supply shop...but lo and behold, Juanita had the same idea and we bumped into one another there...it felt a little surreal since I claim Juanita as my quilt guru.  I just knew I had to go home and get my hands "doing".  Picked up some erasers and carving blocks and a sketch pad and black construction paper at the shop and driving home I was feeling pretty confident.  So I walked through the door, handled the mail, checked email, spoke to Mo on the phone, looked up info on glassmaker Stephen Powell and checked the website for Kentucky Musuem of Art + Craft and discovered they are offering a program for artists to be awarded five months of studio space with the approaching deadling of January 15.  I had a small art spasm...but it was just as quickly deflated as there is an age limit which I'm over by 5 years.  I've called KMAC twice to inquire but had to leave messages both times...still, with the delay in actually talking to a person to see how hard and fast the age limit will apply, I'm riding high on the possibilities that lay ahead.  KMAC is located in the heart of downtown and I can just see myself even with my physical limitations working out of a studio that has public access for 20 hours a week.  I don't know if I'm being overly-optimistic (can there really be such a thing as being overly-optimistic? I mean, really?) or sentimental but what harm can there be in giving it a chance. I've long given up on waiting, waiting, waiting for everything to be just right before one takes action...the lights are never green or red all at the same time.



Back to "doing" art...yesterday, I didn't...never got arountuit.  When all was said and done I crashed and have slept most of the day today...but, oh, yeah! when I finally did get out of bed (for good) I was still pumped, yet, more focused.  This is what I'm doing...carving rubber stamps for later use on cloth.  Digging the fluidity of the lines and curves  contained within the block shape in the ones I've carved so far.    Dscn2710_2



I'm going to continue to wheeze (insert pulmonary humour) right along, so I'll catch you on the down swing or the next elevation of life ;) Peace...



                                                                                                                                                         



3 comments:

  1. Hi!! Are you going up to New Albany to see my quilt? I wish I could come out and visit you and go to the opening.
    So good to hear that you have been out and about.
    I am a little bit upset over the results of the primary yesterday. OK, I was depressed. But today I realized it was still a high water mark for my guy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is it with those age limitations? I too have come across some residency opportunities only to find they are for 25 and under. Does life stop or something? Maybe there aren't enough opportunities for the little ones. I'm not hatin', I'm just sayin'

    ReplyDelete
  3. How exciting to see someone so interested in doing hand carved stamps. I decided that this year that I was going to improve my carving abilities. I got excited about hand carved stamps about a year ago, when I joined a bookmark swap at nervousness.org. One of the people from Mexico did her bookmarks using a lino cut. She shared with us her technique of printing using a tamali nor (tortilla)press.
    Right before Christmas my husband found one of these presses at a thrift store for 5.00. That was the spark that I needed. I invested in some better tools and have started making some hand carved stamps.
    I haven't started posting them on my blog yet but I think I will starting in Feb. I am still quite new to paper art in comparison to others...having more fabric in my life than paper.
    I thought that I would pass this information on to you just to spark your interest in hand carved stamps.
    If you are interested in some other tools besides Speedball, I would recommend
    http://www.imcclains.com/catalog/woodblocktools/komasuki.html
    and if you are interested in meeting other carvers you might want to check out this yahoo group
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CarvingConsortium/

    ReplyDelete

Swatching it!

Well, well, well...look who is swatching!  The plan (here goes...) is to knit my grand daughter a sweater.  This will be my first knitted ...